Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures

The “Myth of the Heavenly Cow” is the conventional title of an Egyptian mythological narrative that relates how humanity once rebelled against the sun god and how thereupon the sun god reorganized the cosmos. The narrative is embedded in the so-called Book of the Heavenly Cow, which is preserved in several versions dating to the New Kingdom. It is an etiological myth explaining the origins of certain natural phenomena and religious festivals as well as legitimizing the institution of Egyptian kingship.